So, yeah...
Xenosaga Episode 3 is...pretty good?
...well unless you like to 'play' games. But then again if you're a fan of the series in the first place you probably don't really mind if you're playing or watching your rpg.
Turns out that those who complained about the gameplay/cutscene ratio in the first 6-8 hours of Ep1 will go batshit insane if they play Ep3 since it has less gameplay in its first 6 hours than Xenosaga Ep1 or probably any other non-text-adventure/romance game out there. See at first the game kinda tricks you into thinking there will be gameplay by starting you off with a tutorial dungeon. But then after that and a quick mech battle you will not fight in a single battle or solve a puzzle for 5-6 hours. Nope, the next 5+ hours consist of walking around a couple of locations and tapping O to advance fully-voiced text boxes (there aren't really that many 'real' cutscenes in the game so the story is 99% pushed through "press O to advance" text boxes").
...Yet those 5 hours of tapping O were very enjoyable. Moreso than the story bits of a lot of recent rpgs. This time around Xenosaga doesn't insult your intelligence, have stupid last-action-hero-meets-anime stunt crap, and doesn't really have all that much techno-babble-for-no-sake (there was a little in the intro dungeon, but its like they got it out of there system there). Nope, instead it's fairly solid writing, characters who thankfully act IN CHARACTER CONSISTENTLY *coughep2cough*, very nice music, and a plot that seems to be moving full-pace ahead since there's a billion characters/plotlines and they only have this game to wrap it all up. The cutscenes that are "real" cutscenes are fairly well directed, and though the game reeks of ultra-low-budget (besides the all voiced text-box story, you have CG stills with voice overs, and news casts telling plot details through audio only) they've done a nice job within their budget restraints.
The graphics are pretty nice too. Not that they jump out as mind-blowing necessarily (and the character proportions are still all sorts of stupid), but the game has a very grand scale to it that makes the cities, space stations, and the like feel really huge like they should be. The game also uses visual tricks like CG backgrounds that become real-time part-way to make some of the landscapes look fairly next-gen incredible when they really aren't. The towns feel alive with people talking all around you with 3d speech bubbles and the new mini-game Geomix is kinda ****ing wierd like spaced out Mario Bros meets Intelligence Cube and is a full standalone game that even has its own level editor
Dungeons also seem pretty good with actual puzzles yay(GRR...VP2 and its lack of VP1 puzzles >_<), and the game has the fastest loading of any 3d rpg when it comes to battle transitions in and out. Being able to bring your own traps to layout and catch enemies off-guard before engaging them is pretty cool too and the main battle system is very fast and seems like it could be alright.
So yeah...though at first it felt like a trainwreck since ep3 just drops you into the middle of the action with no warning, after the intro stuff it actually seems pretty good. I haven't been able to put it down since starting and its been a bit since an rpg was this engaging (especially considering that all I've been doing is hitting O!!!).
Maybe Xenosaga...doesn't suck?
Xenosaga Episode 3 is...pretty good?
...well unless you like to 'play' games. But then again if you're a fan of the series in the first place you probably don't really mind if you're playing or watching your rpg.
Turns out that those who complained about the gameplay/cutscene ratio in the first 6-8 hours of Ep1 will go batshit insane if they play Ep3 since it has less gameplay in its first 6 hours than Xenosaga Ep1 or probably any other non-text-adventure/romance game out there. See at first the game kinda tricks you into thinking there will be gameplay by starting you off with a tutorial dungeon. But then after that and a quick mech battle you will not fight in a single battle or solve a puzzle for 5-6 hours. Nope, the next 5+ hours consist of walking around a couple of locations and tapping O to advance fully-voiced text boxes (there aren't really that many 'real' cutscenes in the game so the story is 99% pushed through "press O to advance" text boxes").
...Yet those 5 hours of tapping O were very enjoyable. Moreso than the story bits of a lot of recent rpgs. This time around Xenosaga doesn't insult your intelligence, have stupid last-action-hero-meets-anime stunt crap, and doesn't really have all that much techno-babble-for-no-sake (there was a little in the intro dungeon, but its like they got it out of there system there). Nope, instead it's fairly solid writing, characters who thankfully act IN CHARACTER CONSISTENTLY *coughep2cough*, very nice music, and a plot that seems to be moving full-pace ahead since there's a billion characters/plotlines and they only have this game to wrap it all up. The cutscenes that are "real" cutscenes are fairly well directed, and though the game reeks of ultra-low-budget (besides the all voiced text-box story, you have CG stills with voice overs, and news casts telling plot details through audio only) they've done a nice job within their budget restraints.
The graphics are pretty nice too. Not that they jump out as mind-blowing necessarily (and the character proportions are still all sorts of stupid), but the game has a very grand scale to it that makes the cities, space stations, and the like feel really huge like they should be. The game also uses visual tricks like CG backgrounds that become real-time part-way to make some of the landscapes look fairly next-gen incredible when they really aren't. The towns feel alive with people talking all around you with 3d speech bubbles and the new mini-game Geomix is kinda ****ing wierd like spaced out Mario Bros meets Intelligence Cube and is a full standalone game that even has its own level editor
Dungeons also seem pretty good with actual puzzles yay(GRR...VP2 and its lack of VP1 puzzles >_<), and the game has the fastest loading of any 3d rpg when it comes to battle transitions in and out. Being able to bring your own traps to layout and catch enemies off-guard before engaging them is pretty cool too and the main battle system is very fast and seems like it could be alright.
So yeah...though at first it felt like a trainwreck since ep3 just drops you into the middle of the action with no warning, after the intro stuff it actually seems pretty good. I haven't been able to put it down since starting and its been a bit since an rpg was this engaging (especially considering that all I've been doing is hitting O!!!).
Maybe Xenosaga...doesn't suck?
